WASHINGTON, D.C. – Commentary published in The New York Times proposes taking a closer look at how math is taught in U.S. schools.

Andrew Hacker, co-author of “Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids – and What We Can Do About It,” writes that mathematics education fails to match skills required in the workplace.

Hacker suggests that “quantitative literacy” courses be made available to students who are not pursuing careers that require an understanding of abstract mathematics. Those courses, he writes, would focus on critically examining statistics cited in news and politics.